After years of pressure from home schoolers, the University System of Georgia's Board of Regents has decided to abandon its discriminatory requirement that home schoolers seeking admission to Georgia state universities take eight SAT II exams.

Adopted in March 1997, this burdensome policy was clearly discriminatory. The exams were expensive, time-consuming, and ultimately an irrelevant exercise-being designed for Advanced Placement and not meant for making basic admissions decisions. Unfortunately, the SAT II requirement drove many Georgia home school graduates to seek admission to private or out-of-state colleges in order to avoid the eight exams.

Beginning in 1998, HSLDA collaborated with the Coalition for Equitable University System of Georgia Admissions, comprised of home school associations throughout the state, to convince the Board of Regents to change their policy. In addition, HSLDA provided the chancellor, chairman, and all 15 other members of the Board of Regents with research demonstrating home schooled students' academic success at elementary, secondary, and college levels.

HSLDA's strategy also included launching a grassroots letter-writing campaign to the Board of Regents and working with the U.S. Congress to add report language to the higher education bill condemning any college that required home schoolers to take SAT II exams.

Meanwhile, the Georgia Home Education Association and other home schoolers asked members of the legislature and the governor to pressure the Board of Regents to drop the SAT II requirement.

Recently, a ranking official with the Board of Regents told HSLDA that the board would officially abandon the SAT II admissions policy in October of 2001. Although HSLDA has seen a draft of the new policy-which basically involves home schoolers taking a regular SAT exam and submitting the scores of a standardized achievement test such as the Iowa Tests of Basic Skills, California Achievement Test, or Stanford Achievement Test-it will not be officially released until October. When we receive the final policy, we will release this information to our members.

We are thankful for the many hours that the Coalition for Equitable USG Admissions put into negotiations and the efforts of home schoolers throughout the state to bring about this resolution.